Chapter Text
The air sparks with friction as the rope's wound into knots, and you hear the lowbloods tussle and tug at it, pulling it into something that's not quite a noose, but close enough to kill you. The mass of hands beneath you, holding you up, drawing you towards centre stage, are as unstable as a sea surging along to a storm, but there's so much happening so quickly, so loudly, that your senses drown in and out of sync with one another.
The Marquise remains where the guards placed her, lacking more in the way of limbs than confidence; she is watching you, you know she is, but you refuse to accept this unlawful sentence without a fight, all because seeing you struggle would amuse her to no end. Even as they take hold of your wrists, twist your elbows to force your arms behind your back, you gain the smallest amount of comfort in knowing that in spite of the dozens of minds the Marquise holds sway over, yours is the only one she truly wants.
Even as they loop the mockery of a noose around your neck, even as you're hoisted up towards the gallows, she can't even scratch at the surface.
She doesn't ask if you have any last words. You smell something in the air that isn't quite satisfaction, isn't quite a smile, but what it is, exactly, doesn't matter; the stench is just as bitter to you, and you'll be dead in a matter of moments, anyway.
The crowd around you thins, until there are only three trolls around you, holding you up. You must've been struggling for some time, because all of the muscles in your body ache and you feel as if you know every jot of pain intimately, and when they finally let you go, it's almost a relief. If you cannot escape, then you want this farce over and done with.
Funny. You always imagined that you'd die for the law, but not in the courtblock. In the split second between the lowbloods releasing you and the rope snapping at your neck, your mind betrays you, and you imagine a thousand impossible ways to escape this. The rope will give, and you'll land hard on your knees, caps cracked, but very much alive. You'll stretch out, just enough, and your toes will touch the scaffold, keeping you from swaying. His Honourable Tyranny will have enough of the mockery staged in his courtblock, and chew his way through the masses.
The rope snags around your throat, your head snaps back, but something breaks your fall.
It isn't the ground. There's still dead air between you and the floorboards, and you twist your ankles very carefully, slowly enough to ensure that you don't lose your balance, finding that hands are holding you in place. Your mind scrambles frantically for an explanation, everything flaring the colour of panic, but the rope still tight around your throat, only allowing enough breath to reach your lungs to keep you barely conscious, gives you all the answers you need.
Mindfang's dragging your torture out. She doesn't have the decency to allow you a quick, clean death.
She has her fingers wrapped around your cane. You can smell the filthy-grey of her hand, dirt from the cellblock caught beneath her nails, against the white, one finger bumping the dragon's head. Metal rings as the blade meets the light, and with your mind clouded as it is, you imagine her digging your own blade right through your gut, before you can even think that she might cut the rope from around your throat.
But the blade isn't meant for you. His Honourable Tyranny growls once, and only once, before she cuts him down where he stands, though she still reeks of bright blue deceit where the arm you took from her has yet to heal over.
You'd shudder to think what she could do, were she in one piece, but your whole body is trembling, limbs twitching at your sides, lungs deflating more than they're able to fill. As she leaves the courtblock, stepping through the black, bloody mess she's made on the floor, one of the lowbloods still under her control scrambles up the hanging tree, and cuts one end of the rope free.
They let go of your feet and you fall the rest of the way, soles barely hitting the ground before you're on your knees. You try to stand, but there's little strength left in your legs, and none in your arms to push yourself back up. All that remains is a pounding in your head, and as a lowblood tugs you across the courtblock, you try your hardest to do something other than be dragged, even if it's only crawling. Your palms slide in a slick puddle left behind by His Honourable Tyranny, and the noose tightens around your throat when you don't move quickly enough.
The lowblood doesn't wait for you. He marches to a set pace, mind not his own, and you know exactly where he's taking you. But you won't plead at the Marquise's feet, won't beg for your life; you're still prepared for your death, steeled against whatever may come.
It's thought of living on that makes your stomach churn.
You can't say how long you're dragged for, but over time, you manage to wrap your fingers around the rope and loosen it, and once you're taking deep breaths, you're just about able to pull yourself to your feet. And just in time, too, because there are you, brought before the Marquise.
She has confidence enough to dismiss the lowblood, to face you one-on-one. And rightly so; your head's still spinning and you can't even taste where you are. Your knees and palms are riddled in bruises and scuffs and the rope around your throat has left burn marks behind, but there she is, still holding the blade she used to cut His Honourable Tyranny in two.
“Neophyte!” she greets you fondly, definitely smiling, now. She pauses thoughtfully, chuckling once under her breath, and you wonder how long it took her to plan out this little speech in the back of her head. “—ah, I apologise for insensitivity. It isn't neophyte anymore, is it, Redglare?”
You stare at her in the same way that the sun once stared down at you. She seems unperturbed.
“Well? Shall we be on our way?”
*
She takes you to a portside tavern, claiming a single block for the day.
She chats happily as you walk, speaking about as much of nothing as she always does, tugging at the rope whenever you fall behind. She still has your cane and your head isn't where it should be, but you never once lose your footing, no matter how much she'd like you to. You follow Mindfang because you're going to kill her; you're going to get this damn rope off from around your throat, tie it into a proper nose, retrieve your cane, and laugh as you hang, draw and quarter her. You're going to enjoy every last justified moment of it, after what she did to the trial, to His Honourably Tyranny, and then you will march yourself back to the courtblock, and let them sentence you too, if they please.
Mindfang tugs at the rope for the umpteenth time, and you snarl, snapping your teeth.
With a roll of her good eye, she tells you that it's not going to be any fun if you insist on acting like that, and uses the tip of your cane to cut the rope away. The edge of the blade nips at your throat, and you lunge forward, serving her a black eye and a hopefully cracked rib before she's got you on your back, one boot pressed squarely against your chest.
“I haven't the faintest idea why you're so intent on harming me,” Mindfang says, elbow propped against her knee as she leans forward; she pushes more weight against your chest, once again reminding you how easily she could burst your lungs. “I saved you from that dreary life and, if I dare say so, a rather unbecoming death.”
You don't even do her the favour of sneering, this time. She offers out a hand to help you up, and you ask for the other one.
“Things will be absolutely fine,” Mindfang tells you as you continue walking towards the shore together, because you cannot very well kill her if you run off, “Once we find that beautiful beast of yours, we'll be well on our way.”
But she refuses to say any more on the matter, even when you finally raise your voice.
The closer you get to the coast, the more your senses are flooded: sea-salt and wet sand, rotting wood and ale brewed in the cellarblock of the same establishment it's sold in. If walking side by side with the Marquise wasn't bad enough, you're being forced to endure the stench of her from every direction.
She assures you that she knows the tavern she takes you to as well as the back of her horns, which can never be a good thing. You hear at least eight laws being broken on the way in, and while the place is crowded, as soon as people take heed of who's turned up, there are more empty tables to choose between than you know what to do with.
Mindfang picks a table in the centre of the tavern as if every legislacerator in a hundred mile radius isn't out looking for her, and the barkeeper brings you both over a keg and an assortment of food, too utterly terrified to ask for anything in the way of payment. You cringe as she picks up a grubloaf, biting off more than anyone should be able to chew, and blithely remarks that the courtblock rations were absolutely atrocious.
You decline the food she offers you, actively push the alcohol away, and she's delighted to learn that you've lost your appetite.
“Well!” she announces, like she's very sorry to interrupt you, the fantastic conversational partner you've been thus far. “What are we to do next?”
We, she keeps saying. You cannot, and will not, speak for the pair of you collectively. You know what you plan to do, and that involves taking her head, or at least her other arm; and if her wandering attention is anything to go by, she plans to proposition at least two of the courtesans in the far corner. You hear them giggle and whisper amongst themselves, intrigued by the missing arm and burnt eye, impressed by blood that smells so dark they must be able to see it against the black of her jacket.
“There is no we,” you inform her curtly, and immediately regret giving her the satisfaction of an entire sentence.
“Isn't there?” You reach for the carving knife set out next to the joint of oinkbeast meat, fingers wrapping around the hilt. “Think about it: you and I are in the same position. An unfortunate position, by most accounts, true, but it is also a fresh start.”
She presses two fingers to the back of your wrist, and you consider turning your hand and cutting them clean off.
“The same position,” you repeat dryly, placing the knife back against the tabletop, “What do you mean?”
“We're fugitives!” Mindfang wraps her hand around your wrist, uncurling your fingers from where nails dig into your palm. “On the run from your once-precious law. The courtblock has already seen to it that I am without with fleet, ships and crew alike, as well as a fair few body parts; and you have allowed a notorious criminal to not only escape, but to slaughter His Honourable Tyranny in your presence. Were you truly devoted to the law, I've little doubt that you'd march yourself back to the courtblock and allow them to continue with your hanging. But self-sacrifice is only as attractive as it is fleeting.”
You focus on the weight of her hand against your wrist, as if you can feel her skin through your sleeve and her glove, rather than the words she almost seems to chant. Just as you're about to pull away from her grasp, she lets go, hand momentarily retreating to her side.
“Both of us are without anything, save a potentially blank slate,” she concludes. You want to tell her that the law doesn't work like that, but then she's pressing something between both of your palms.
Your fingers wrap back around your cane, and you pull it towards yourself, hidden blade crossing your chest. Mindfang is older than you, stronger and taller, too, but you could splice her throat open. Her senses must be dulled at least a little from the alcohol you can smell on her breath.
But she's given you the cane for a reason. She's testing you, wanting to see if you're as predictable as she believes you to be. You listen to the sounds of the tavern around you, and realise that it's far too quiet; they're listening in on your conversation, ready to strike. These people will fight for her, whether through their own agency or something else.
You rest your cane across your legs, taking a tankard of ale for yourself.
You drink, listening to nothing more she has to say, and certainly don't think about how right she is.
*
You don't sleep for most of the day.
You feel the sun's warmth beat against the shutters, and sit on the floor in one corner of the block, knees pulled to your chest. There isn't a recuperacoon in here; there isn't a drop of sopor slime in the entire tavern. It's too expensive to change out every time the block gets a new guest, and there were too many infections spreading through neglect. There's a bed at the opposite end of the block, and though you retire from the bar before Mindfang does, you still don't claim it as you own.
You've no intention of making yourself any more vulnerable around her, and if you were to sleep, you'd need the slime. Despite being blind, closing your eyes still causes a shift in the scenery around you, and even the backs of your own eyelids make your head pound. The rope was thrown by the wayside, and yet you still feel every fibre press against your throat, unable to do much more than imagine the way your legs kicked out in abject fear, the way you couldn't keep yourself calm in the face of what should've been inevitability.
It shames you to realise how much you want to be alive, though you know that you have nothing left that's worth clinging to.
Mindfang comes up hours after you do, and you keep your eyes closed as she plants heavy footfalls across creaking floorboards. Let her think that you're sleeping, and perhaps she'll do you the favour of sparing you both the sound of her intolerable voice. You don't pay any mind to what she's likely been doing, and you're surprised when she doesn't try anything: she falls down against the bed with a thud, and within minutes, her breathing shifts, signalling that sleep's laid claim to her.
Your eyes creak open, and you silently lift your cane from its place by your side. You tense, though you know Mindfang won't be disturbed, if you yourself haven't managed to hear any slight sounds, no matter how you strain your ears, and hook your thumb beneath the dragon's head. A little pressure, and the blade would be out. A flick of your wrist and she'd be gutted; she's stretched out on her back, sleep heavy with food and drink.
But if Mindfang hadn't have anticipated this all, she never would've made herself this vulnerable to you. She is sleeping, and you have a blade, along with the determination to follow through on your desires; there's something more to this. It's too easy, and besides, you don't want to splice her into two while she's sleeping.
You have a difficult time admitting it to yourself, but even the Marquise deserves better than that.
At some point, when dusk finally creeps around, you must drift off, because you're blinking your eyes a little too hard when the sound of Mindfang groaning under her breath makes you start more than it should.
It's evident enough what's happened: the numbing affect of the alcohol has worn off, her makeshift bandages aren't quite as effective as she'd initially thought, and waking is causing her to grapple with her own bravado. She has lost an arm, yet she is determined to keep her spirits soaring obnoxiously high, no matter how difficult early evening aches and pains make doing so. You smell fresh patches of blueberry blood on her, matted into the mattress, and her every joint creaks in protest as she makes her way across the block.
“On your feet, Redglare. We're going.”
Again with the we. You don't argue with her, much to her dismay. You calmly push yourself to your feet, and walk with your cane before you, tapping at the ground, making a show of how easy it is for you to move. Even with an almost complete lack of sleep.
“I can hear it trickling out,” you tell her as you head inland, “Your clothing is saturated.”
Mindfang does her best to ignore you, and tries picking up her pace, marching along the cobbled path. You allow yourself a grin, and then inhale sharply. You're glad she's walking ahead of you, because your tongue flicks out, pad pressing against your top lip.
“There is only so much blood in even your body, Marquise. You will be on your knees by the time we reach the next town. Dead by the next city.”
She turns to face you as she speaks, though she knows you've no chance of discerning the expression she chooses to show you.
“Then it is a good thing we are travelling to neither town nor city, Redglare.”
The air grows thick in a way that you can't feel with your fingertips or taste on your tongue, and the whole atmosphere is disconcerting, as if you've suddenly realised you're in the middle of a dream, but can't force yourself to wake. Mindfang leads you down to the maw of a cave, and the ground beneath your feet is dead, not a single root twisting its way to the surface, long before you step inside.
It is all oil and grease and steel and sweat in there. You walk behind Mindfang, more out of a sense of caution than an innate desire to allow yourself to be led, and within moments, you hear the low grumble of a blue blood's voice scratch at the low ceiling. He's darker than Mindfang, yet she still talks down to him as she sits before him, having not waited to be offered a chair.
It's another stark reminder of why you can't kill her, no matter how you ache to hear the muted puncture that slips in between your blade cutting her throat and the blood rushing out; you may have been forcefully removed from the law itself, but that isn't to say that you're about to become a petty criminal. You aren't going to step out of line with the hemospectrum.
As upbeat as Mindfang tries to make herself seem in front of the boulder of a man she introduces as Darkleer, all three inhabitants of the cave are well aware of the fact that it's a show. She rubs irritably at her burnt-out eye, the black of her gloves scrubbing against red, and by the time Darkleer's cauterising her left shoulder, the only noise she makes is a hiss of relief.
The new arm takes three nights to fit. Mindfang seems to have ensured that Darkleer was prepared for such an inevitability, and spends much of the time he isn't plying her with alcohol to (supposedly) numb her to the pain asking him to kindly hurry things along. Surely fitting a fully-functional robotic arm, complete with sensor pads and wires that run like nerves, can't be that difficult. While she's being seen to, Mindfang sends you through one of the cave's winding paths, to a horde of supplies she has stashed away.
You can't wear the uniform of the law forever, she tells you.
For a woman who claims to have lost everything, she certainly has a great deal in material wealth. There are hefty chests placed throughout the hollow, each one worth as much as whatever they hold; you feel the corners of cut jewels and the cold surface of gold and silver, and in a box bigger than all the others, there's a collection of clothing, each piece wrapped in fabric fine enough to line the Grand Highblood's floors.
Mindfang is right about your clothing situation, though you're loathe to admit that she can be right about anything. Bright red and teal are hardly the most subtle of colours, and the cut of your clothing is distinctive enough; you won't do well in it, outside of ports riddled with pirates.
Blade drawn, you cut your way through the layers of fabric, not expecting to find anything even remotely suitable. Mindfang is a good deal taller than you and not quite as lean, and the first shirt you try billows around you with as much grace as a sack. You settle on your third choice, a high-collared white shirt that laces up around the wrists and across the chest, careful to keep your pendant tucked away. The pants you find, much like the shirt, don't smell as if they've ever been worn by Mindfang, and fit well enough with the addition of a belt. The boots are the only part of the outfit that aren't entirely intolerable; they're as black as the pants, each one reaching your kneecaps, lacing up all the way.
Pulling your gloves off last of all, you place them on the pile of your discarded uniform and then, pretending that you don't give it so much as a second thought, throw it into the box with the rest of Mindfang's clothing that's now in tatters. You keep the lid open, hoping that over time, the dank conditions of the cave will get to what remains of her things.
You spend the remainder of your time in Darkleer's company thinking up a thousand ways to prove that Mindfang's wrong about your life having effectively reached a dead end. Within hours, you conclude that if there was any semblance of hope left, you would've left the cave long ago, and so instead remain silent, wondering how long it will take for Pyralspite to track you down.
Darkleer appreciates your silence. To him, your inescapable contemplation passes as obedience, and you can only wonder how a man of his standing ended up in a place like this. There is something very wrong about it, and when you give yourself over to sleep during the second day, you wake out of breath, convinced that everything between the rope snagging at your neck and this very moment was an illusion spilled from the depths of your think pan, and you really are dead.
Mindfang's metal arm only makes her less graceful than ever. You hear it whirr as it comes to life with every clunky movement she makes, and, as usual, the Marquise is so very full of herself that she entirely ignores the fact that she's yet to master just how to use it with anything resembling precision.
The steel clinks with every step the two of you take out of the cave, and other than to compliment your choice of clothing, she says nothing. The silence unnerves you, seemingly as much as her voice infuriates you, and it's not until you're far enough from the cave to count it as nothing beyond a memory that you feel comfortable speaking out into the cold night air.
“Where will you go now, Marquise?” you ask, careful to say you, not we. There may be no single place that you yourself can think to head, but you're not about to resign yourself to following her around like a woofbeast.
“Please, call me Mindfang,” she says, and she has said it plenty of times before. You've ignored the offer each and every time, and have no intention of allowing yourself to become any more familiar with her. “—and if the clothing bothers you to such a degree, then I shall have one of my tailors put together something better suited to your frame.”
You stop walking, and when she notices you fall behind, she too comes to a halt. You tilt your head to the side, waiting for her to continue. This is interesting; it isn't often that a woman like Mindfang ignores a question altogether, unless there is something she wishes to remain hidden. From all that she allows to go on display, whatever she wishes to keep to herself must be especially heinous.
“Where are you going?” you ask her again, voice stronger than it has been in nights.
Mindfang tries to let out a flat laugh, but all she manages is an honest to god huff. You fold your arms across your chest and she turns from you, speaking under her breath as she heads away; as if you will be unable to catch what she says.
“To feed my lusus, Redglare.”
*
On the way to Mindfang's hive, you stop at a small town for supplies. Darkleer did his best to be a gracious host, but his obsession with his own misery took pride of place, and you were better off scrounging for what little food there was yourself. You haven't eaten properly in nights. When you think about it, the last passable meal you actually had was before you were sent out to track down Mindfang, and you hope beyond hope that once you eat, your head will clear enough for you to know exactly where it is you need to go.
Beside one of the stalls, where Mindfang is having an assortment of beetles sorted into jars, you catch scent of a lowblood beating someone who's at least four shades higher than them within an inch of their life. This town isn't much better than the pirate-infested ports you've worked shifts at before, and you tighten your grip on your cane, about to let the blade breathe.
You're disappointed in yourself when you take a moment to realise that it isn't your place, anymore. Your heart pounds out of a sense of what you once would've described as devotion, and can now only to think to place as exhilaration, and your shoulder blades ache with how badly you want to right this wrong.
Mindfang notices the pair fighting. It's hard to miss them, even without your hearing; they may be tucked away in an alleyway, but the lowblood is drawing enough attention to them. A crowd begins to gather around, and Mindfang leans in close, murmuring under her breath, “Not only a legislacerator has the right to bring a stop to the injustices perpetrated by lowbloods.”
Again, she's right. Unlike before, you can't even begin to resent her for this much, because while you may no longer serve the law in an official capacity, that doesn't mean that you should do anything short of respect it with your every movement. It could be the hunger, and it could be all that you've gone through in the recent nights, but suddenly, you're more than convinced that the crowd would cheer, upon seeing justice done.
Mindfang places a hand against one of your shoulders, and that settles it. You move swiftly from her touch, creating a hole in the crowd, and flick out your blade in one wide, swift half-circle. The green blood on the floor whimpers more loudly than before, arms wrapped around his head, not certain of what's happening, and the jeering crowd falls worryingly silent.
And then there it is, the applause you were expecting. Some of the lowblood's colouring sprays against your face, staining the front of the shirt the Marquise gave you, and then somebody's grabbing at your elbow, demanding to know what gives you the right to do that. He wants to see your eyes, and with a sneer, you snatch your glasses off your face, and press your forehead right against his.
“She's with me,” you hear Mindfang say as the crowd parts to accommodate her. Her hand goes back to your shoulder, and her metal fingers wrap around the man's hand, prying his grasp away from your elbow. “And rest assured, justice has most certainly been served.”
*
Mindfang's hive is atop a hill that makes your thighs burn to scale, built into the rocks themselves. It has stood there for decades, perhaps longer, and will continue to stand centuries after the two of you are gone from this world.
It's outside of time, in its own way, and you doubt Mindfang has done anything to change it since the moment she was old enough to take on Alternia as a whole. She asks if you'd like to wait outside, almost insists on it, really, but you ignore the fact that it won't take long, really, and follow her inside.
Between the two of you, you carry the body of the lowblood from the market. Mindfang had one of the merchants tie a sack around his throat to stop the blood from dripping everywhere. She disables a handful of traps with every turn you take in the seemingly endless corridors of the castle, until you reach an open space; something like a courtyard.
Mindfang snaps at you to put the body down, no longer able to keep up her once perpetual guise of self-indulgent amusement at everything that happens around her, and you can only imagine how horrific her lusus will be. You're well aware that someone of your caste is not usually afforded a dragon as a guardian, but as she insists on reminding you with more regularity than you need to actually remember the shade of her blood, she outranks you on all fronts. Her lusus ought to be at least as imposing, in terms of strength and stature.
You almost consider taking a step back. The slightest noise makes you start.
It takes you half a second to realise that those aren't thundering footsteps you're hearing clatter against the cold stone ground. It is a clacking, a skidding, a skating, eight tiny chirps against the tiles moving with more speed than balance allows, excitement getting the better of it. The lusus makes as straight a line as it can towards Mindfang, and she too takes a step back, cringing.
You laugh once, flatly, but cannot commit yourself to cackling. There is confusion clouding the corners of your mind, making you feel as if your senses are failing you; because, surely, the spider Mindfang calls a lusus has to be bigger than your head. You suppose that, yes, the legs do a great deal to make the creature seem larger, but all at once, it's clambering up Mindfang's robes, and she has no option but to kneel to meet it.
Fabric rustles as Mindfang gestures behind herself, pointing to the body that has to be good for at least a dozen meals laid out on the ground. Her lusus makes no movement, cares nothing for its meal, and instead chirps away in concern, two long legs wrapping around the metal of Mindfang's wrist.
“This is your lusus?” you ask, having never wanted to speak with Mindfang more than you do now.
“Yes,” she says, and only yes, proving once and for all that she's capable of brevity. She merely chooses to make you suffer with the long-winded rambles she thinks poetic.
“She's very small,” you say, and kneel down next to her. The spider turns its head towards you, all eight eyes throwing moonlight against your skin, and you wonder how it would react if it knew the part you played in searing out its ward's vision. It might very well launch itself at your face, legs wrapping around your head and throat, and then you'd have no choice but to make a mess of your nice new boots. “But I suppose that you were once very small as well, Marquise.”
Mindfang goes to say something more, works her jaw, but nothing comes out. Her frustration is palpable in the air, and it thrums against your skin, until you've no choice but to double over and laugh until you're certain you'll empty the contents of your stomach all over the floor. You don't care that she's scowling at you, most likely considering snapping your neck in the way the rope failed to, because this is all too much; this is what you should've revealed about her to the world at large. You were wasting your time, setting fire to her fleet.
The spider continues to fuss, until Mindfang has enough, and bats it away. Off it scurries to the body you were kind enough to serve up, sinking its fangs into the meatier part.
When you finally stop to catch your breath, your body feels more rotten than it did with the Marquise's boot pressed to your chest, but you can't bring yourself to care. Next to you, Mindfang would very much like you believe that she isn't shaken by the whole ordeal, and she rises to her feet as you do the same.
“How did you ever turn out so loathsome?” you ask, humour completely drained from your voice.
She very nearly huffs again, but quickly comes to the conclusion that she can't afford to make it seem as if you aren't even worth answering for a second time. She catches herself, clearing her throat, and you lick at your lips, mouth horribly dry from all that laughter.
“Somebody had to protect her, did they not?”
There is something genuine in her voice, when she speaks about her lusus. Something she tries very hard to keep hidden, and once she speaks, you find yourself at a loss for words. Not because she has managed to anger you beyond the point of comprehension, and not because you wish to meet her mockery with silence; she has given you something to think about, and you're not yet aware of how uncomfortable that makes you.
Beyond her show of bravado, and beyond what the courtblock has told you, there is very little you know about this woman.
You quickly come to the conclusion that you do not wish to learn more.
You retreat within a wall of silence, as if to make up for your unfortunate outburst of laughter at her expense, and when she tells you that it's time to leave, it isn't a moment too soon. There is something about this place that gets right into your bones, and you can almost feel the foundations shift beneath your feet.
Mindfang doesn't object when you walk ahead of her, having memorised all the traps on the way in, cane held in front of you, just in case there's anything determined to catch you off-guard.
Beyond the walls of the hive, rather than being met with the rocky hillside, the entire landscape is obstructed by a stone giant, brought to life in leathery shades of white. You hear Mindfang falter behind you, hear the way her breath catches in her throat as every muscle momentarily refuses to move. Your mouth splits into its first sincere smile in weeks, and then she's hurrying to your side, scurrying like that tiny lusus of hers.
Her shoulder presses to yours, and you can feel her heart pound through the fabric.
There she stands by your side, as if putting herself on the same level as you is going to stop Pyralspite from devouring her whole in a single bite.